Incandescent and fluorescent lighting systems are widely employed illumination systems for general use. The quality of object color under the illumination system is an important aspect of the value of such light source. For incandescent illumination systems in particular, consumers have found that incandescent bulbs sold as REVEAL® by the General Electric Company to be quite appealing, even more so than the highly desirable color of the standard incandescent lamp, due in no small part to the enhanced color contrast of the REVEAL® lamp.
In general, the quality of object color has been described in terms of color rendering, which is a measure of the degree to which the psycho-physical colors of objects illuminated by a light source conform to those of a reference illuminant for specified conditions. Color rendering as used here refers to the accurate representation of object colors compared to those same objects under a reference source.
One recent energy-efficient type of illumination system employs solid-state light emitting elements, such as light emitting diodes. In view of the appeal of the REVEAL® incandescent bulbs, a solid-state light emitting lamp with REVEAL® lighting properties, if attainable, would provide an energy-efficient light source with appealing color quality to consumers. However, there is no generally applicable mode for characterizing the appeal of the REVEAL® incandescent bulbs in such a way that it can be applied to solid-state lighting systems.
It would be desirable if there were a mode to quantify how to make light sources that generate appealing enhanced color contrast. It would also be desirable if there were solid state illumination systems having appealing enhanced color contrast.